Winning It All (Hometown Players Book 4)

by Victoria Denault

  I know it’s stupid to be embarrassed that I didn’t put up a fight, but I am anyway. Trey hugs me again, slightly less forcefully. “You’re fucking moving.”

  “No. I’m not,” I argue, even though I’m probably going to start to look at rental listings. Just in case there’s something else out there I can afford.

  Trey lets me go and turns back to the police officer. “Does she need to go to the doctor? The hospital? Should we have her checked out?”

  He points to me. “That’s up to her. She did take a bit of a tumble.”

  I flex my left hand and feel the burn from where I turned the corner at the end of the block and tripped on the uneven sidewalk. My palm is scraped and my left knee and my yoga pants are torn, and I probably had a mild cardiac event thinking the mugger would catch me, but it turns out he wasn’t even chasing me. When I ran, he must have just grabbed my wallet and taken off.

  “I’m okay. Just scrapes. I just really want to go home.”

  “You’re not going back there!”

  “Trey, it didn’t happen in my house or anything. It was a block away. I was taking a shortcut home,” I explain. At least being annoyed at him is helping me calm down. “When I get a new car this won’t happen again.”

  I just don’t have the cash for a decent car right now. I’d been trying to decide if I should use what little savings I do have to move into an apartment in a better area instead of buying another car. This incident, which was terrifying, made me realize I have to act soon. But if I admitted that to Trey, he’d feel guilty and try to pay me more, which I know he can’t afford.

  “And when, exactly, are you getting a new car?”

  “Umm…shortly.”

  He swears under his breath but before he can lecture me, I hear my name from an all too familiar, overdramatic voice. I turn and see my mother and father marching toward us. My mom is already crying. My dad’s face is set in a weird scowl or grimace or something.

  “Shaynie. Oh my God!” She literally throws herself at me and I glare up at my brother.

  “You were mugged,” Trey replies to my unspoken anger at the fact he called our parents.

  I untangle myself from my mother, and my father stalks over and shocks me by grabbing my face in his big hands. He looks right into my eyes, and I swear I see anguish. “Are you okay?”

  I nod because I can’t seem to find my voice. His hands press more firmly and he repeats the question. This time I manage to croak out an answer. “He didn’t hurt me.”

  My father releases me and turns to the police officer, who clearly recognizes him, because he’s got that awed look on his face I know too well. “Can we take our daughter home now? Do you need anything else?”

  “Yes, sir. I have her mugger’s description and a record of the incident. We’ll be in touch tomorrow or the next day with more information,” he says and pauses before adding, “I’m a huge fan, Mr. Beckford.”

  My father’s face morphs into one of his trademark confident smiles. “Thanks, Officer…Seabrook. Very nice to hear. I’m hoping you can make a point of working hard to catch this bastard since it’d mean a great deal to me.”

  Yeah, because if you weren’t such a sports icon, they wouldn’t even bother looking for a man with a weapon who steals from women. Leave it to my dad to make my mugging about him. I give Trey another thanks a lot glare and start to untangle myself from our mother, who is hugging me again.

  “I just want to go home and forget this happened, okay?”

  My father and I both shake hands with the police officer who was helping me, and as Trey, my mom and I all make our way out of the station, my father stops for several selfies with officers along the way. Of course.

  Outside it’s dark and warm, but I still feel a chill. I rub my arms. Trey unzips and shrugs out of his hoodie and drapes it over my shoulders. It feels as big as a blanket and I’m reminded of Sebastian’s hoodie that I wore this morning. God, I loved that thing, Winterhawks logo and all. I should have stolen it.

  Sebastian. I dig my phone out of my coat pocket and check. Yep. He’s texted twice and called once, but there’s no voicemail. He must think I’m ignoring him. And as I take a deep breath of night air I’m thinking maybe I should ignore him. I know telling him about this will screw up his concentration. And being a hockey kid, I know the sport is equal parts mental game and physical game.

  I shove my phone back in my pocket, and my mother clutches my arm. “I’ll make up your old bedroom.”

  “What?”

  “As soon as we get home, I’ll make up your bedroom.”

  “I’m not going to your home,” I tell her firmly. “I’m going to mine.”

  “You shouldn’t be alone after this, Shayne,” Trey says, and I want to punch him. “Especially not your home.”

  “I’m a grown woman and I am going home. My home.” My father walks up just as I finish speaking and he stares down at me with a condemning stare.

  “You’re moving out of that shit box,” he barks and runs a hand over his graying hair. “You can move in with your mother or you can live in the pool house. We renovated it a few years ago, you know that. It’s self-contained, got its own kitchen and bathroom.”

  My mother had acted devastated when I moved back to Seattle after college and refused to live in the renovated pool house. She proclaimed she did it just for me and that it was my father’s idea. I would never live with them again; I don’t know how they didn’t catch on to that fact when I refused any of their money for school and when I didn’t even tell them I was moving back. Trey was the one who let it slip.

  “Look, I appreciate that you two are trying to be parental and everything. I understand that being mugged is scary for everyone, not just me.” I was truly being serious here, but with every word I could see the flicker of anger behind my dad’s gray eyes grow brighter. “I’m grateful for the offer, but I am not, under any circumstances, moving back home.”

  “Shayne, I’ve had enough with your bullshit,” my father spits out, so frustrated his face is turning red. “You’re holding a grudge at your own expense and it’s just dumb at this point. Grow up.”

  He yanks his wallet out of his back pocket and shoves a wad of bills in my hand and leans in close to my face, his expression softening for a moment. “I love you, Shaynie. I don’t know what I would do if something happened to you.”

  He kisses my forehead quickly and then stalks across the parking lot, back to his car. My mother, her lip quivering, shakes her head at me and whispers, “You’re punishing me too. Not just him, you know.”

  And then she stumbles away after him. I hear Trey sigh next to me and I look up. He watches them until my dad pulls out of the parking lot. “I’ll drive you to that crack den you call an apartment.”

  I roll my eyes but follow him to his car. I look down at the cash in my hand. It’s four hundred dollars in fifty-dollar bills. I try to hand it to Trey, but he shakes his head. “Use it to put a down payment on a new car or a deposit on a decent apartment.”

  “No.”

  “Well, you’ll have to try and give it back to him yourself, because I’m not helping you this time,” he says.

  As we’re buckling up, my phone rings and I dig it out. It’s Sebastian. Again. I hesitate. Trey leans over and glances at the screen. I decide to answer the call rather than deal with the fifty invasive questions I’m sure he’s about to pepper me with. “Hey.”

  “Shay, baby, I was beginning to think you were blowing me off.” His voice is soothing. It’s like the warm hug I’ve been craving.

  “No. I wasn’t,” I promise and when I take a breath it’s shaky. “I had a really bad day.”

  Trey snorts beside me at the way I underplayed that, and I raise my middle finger in his general direction. “I’ve been thinking about you nonstop, ma belle,” Seb confesses in a husky voice. “I hope you know as soon as this plane lands in four days I’m coming to see you.”

  “Good,” I say, and I know I have to get
off the phone. It’s not just that it’s awkward talking to him with my brother right beside me; it’s also that the way his voice is making me feel so warm and comforted is making the reality of what happened to me sink in, and I feel like I might cry. “Trey is driving me home right now. Can I call you back later?”

  There’s a pause. “We have a curfew. I’m supposed to be lights out in ten minutes.”

  “Oh. Okay.” Fucking hockey.

  “Call me back anyway.”

  “No. It’s fine. We’ll talk tomorrow. It’s no big deal,” I tell him, and Trey chuffs sarcastically beside me. “Have a good night and a good game tomorrow. Bye.”

  As soon as I hit the end button Trey starts in. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

  “With Sebastian?” I counter, and I decide to be my usual flippant self. “Well, I got an A in sex ed in high school and I got a little hands-on training in college.”

  “Oh my God, shut up!” Trey demands and shakes his head in disgust. “I mean with your life in general, Shayne.”

  “My life is fine.”

  His eyebrow quirks and the look on his face is sheer disbelief. “You don’t have enough money to buy a car, you live in a crap area of town where you get mugged because you won’t take help from our father due to your morals against his profession and life choices, but yet you’re involved with someone who does the exact same thing for a living and probably lives the same lifestyle.”

  “Sebastian is nothing like Dad,” I spit out hotly, and the suggestion has me furious. “You’re not cheating on Sasha, are you?”

  “Of course not,” he says as he turns onto my street.

  “Well, you were a hockey player,” I remind him. “And you aren’t like Dad.”

  He gives me a quick, bitter smile. “Yeah, but I was. And I’ll be honest with you, Shayne, it’s hard not to be that way when you’re playing. Women are everywhere and your adrenaline is always high. After a win you want to celebrate and after a loss you want to commiserate and there are always more than a few pieces of tail willing to help you do it.”

  “Never ever say ‘tail’ to me again. Never,” I tell him as he slows and pulls to the curb in front of my building. “So are you saying Jordan is cheating on Jessie?”

  “No. I’m not. I’m just saying that the option is ever present.” He turns off the engine and crosses his arms over the steering wheel as he turns and levels me with a stare. “Deveau seems like a good guy. Hothead on the ice but smart and genuine off. Maybe he’s one of the good ones. But are you really going to be able to get past your own baggage to see it? I know you, Shayne, and that’s not going to be easy. You’re likely to fuck this whole thing up trying.”

  “Thanks for your vote of confidence,” I snap, and those tears from earlier are threatening to fill my eyes again. “Remind me not to call you the next time I need help, because if this is your idea of it, I’d be better off on my own.”

  I unclip my seat belt and jump out. By the time I reach the door, my brother is right behind me. “I’m walking you in because I’m worried about you. Deal with it.”

  I ignore him and unlock the front door. He follows me in and I storm to the elevator and punch the button. Trey puts his hands on my shoulders, but I shrug out of them.

  “Shaynie, I love you, and I’m just worried that this isn’t going to end well for you.” I can hear the sincerity in his voice, but it doesn’t make it sting any less.

  “You don’t know him, and maybe you don’t know me as well as you think you do.”

  The elevator arrives, and we step in as one of my sketchy neighbors steps out. It’s a dude who lives on the floor below me who I am pretty sure sells drugs. He glances at us as he steps off and I ignore him. Trey eyeballs him skeptically and then shoots me a horrified glare, but I ignore it.

  As we chug up to my floor, Trey says, “Why didn’t you tell him about the mugging?”

  “He’s starting playoffs tomorrow.” I step off the elevator and march to my door. After unlocking it, I swing it open and flip on the light in the front hall. “Hello! Burglars, rapists, murderers! I’m home!”

  When no one responds, I turn to Trey. “Happy now? Go home.”

  He ignores me and pushes into my apartment. I stand by the kitchen door with my arms crossed as I watch him wander from room to room. Finally he stands in front of me. “So what if he’s in playoffs?”

  “So he’s got to concentrate. You know that.” How is he so stupid suddenly? “Remember when Dad was in playoffs he barely even spoke to us? Remember when I broke my arm in gymnastics and Mom called him to let him know and he was furious? They lost the series and he blamed family issues pulling his head out of the game. I’m not going to do that to Seb over a stolen wallet.”

  Trey stares at me expectantly, like he’s waiting for me to clue in. When I stare back blankly he starts to shake his head slowly. He leans down and kisses the top of my head. “And there’s the baggage I was talking about.”

  He starts to my door but stops at the threshold and examines the dead bolts on my door—I am suddenly very happy there are two and two chains. He seems satisfied with that. “Keep this locked up tight and call me for anything at anytime. Got it?”

  He leaves, and I poke my head out the door and watch him walk to the elevator. As he gets into it, he calls out without turning around. “If he’s different and you don’t think he’s like Dad, then tell him about tonight, Shayne.”

  I don’t have time to think of a snotty response before the elevator doors slide shut.

  Chapter 38

  Sebastian

  The first person I see when we walk through the door is Sara. She’s about to give me bitchface, which is her go-to since she caught me with Shayne, but then she sees my face. “Oh my God!” she squeaks. “It didn’t look that bad on TV.”

  “It’s not that bad,” I promise. “It’s just swollen.”

  I knew I shouldn’t come here like this. Damn it. But I really wanted to see Shay. It’s been a rough few days. We won the first game clean and easy, but the second game the Comets came out with a chip on their shoulder. It was rough; there was almost as much going on after the whistles as there was during the game. I caught a high stick in front of the net. That douchebag Braddock nailed me and actually had the nerve to lip off to the ref that it was an accident. I had a nice slice through my chin, but because he drew blood, we got a four-minute power play and scored what ended up being the game winner. Now my chin is swollen and bruised, along with being stitched, and judging by the way Sara is looking at me, I look like Frankenstein’s monster. At least my wrist healed before my face got mutilated. There’s only so much pain I can take at once. Maybe I should wait to see Shay until I look better.

  I don’t think Sara even heard my response, because she’s spotted Avery, who came with me. Her eyes grow wide and her smile grows even wider. “Avery Westwood! Great game this afternoon! That goal was a beauty!”

  “Thanks. Two down, two more to go.” Avery gives her his typical milk-’n’-cookies smile, the one that’s launched a thousand products.

  “You’ll sweep them. I know it!”

  “Shh!” He tries to make it sound casual, but I know Avery, and the “sweep” word is on his superstitious “never say out loud” list of playoff words. He thinks it’s a jinx, like when a goalie hasn’t let in a goal and someone says “shutout” before the end of the game. And as if on cue…

  “I just know you’ll do it. I bet Choochinsky even gets a shutout next game! He’s playing great! You’re going to win the Cup this year!”

  I interrupt because if I don’t, Avery might have to sacrifice a goat or something to make up for all the jinxes he thinks she’s putting out there.

  “Is Shay…Shayne here?” I ask, but I think I already know the answer. She has an eight o’clock yoga class. So I’m a little shocked when Sara shakes her head.

  “She isn’t. Had to cancel her class so she could go to the police station.”

 
“What? Why?”

  “The mugging. They think they got the guy, and she had to go identify him.” Sara says this casually as she starts putting the fruit in the fridge for the night.

  “She was mugged?!”

  “Holy shit,” Avery adds under his breath, but loud enough that I can hear him.

  Sara freezes and blinks, then frowns. “Yeah. How do you not know that?”

  Yeah, how the fuck do I not know that?

  “Is Trey here?”

  Sara motions with her head toward his office. I turn and Avery follows. “She didn’t tell you she was mugged?”

  I shake my head, but I don’t respond because I can’t think of a good reason why I shouldn’t know this. Two seconds later I’m standing in Trey’s open door with Avery right behind me. Trey’s sitting behind his desk. I clear my throat. He jerks his head up and his posture straightens at the sight of me.

  “Hey, Trey.”

  “Sebastian.” He walks around the desk and shakes my hand as his eyes land on my chin. “Tough win.”

  Clearly he watched the game. I nod, and he notices Avery over my shoulder. “Avery.”

  He doesn’t extend his hand this time, just nods. Avery deserves that, and he knows it, which is why he tagged along when I said I was heading to Elevate to see Shayne.

  “Sara just told me Shayne was mugged,” I say to him.

  Trey almost grimaces at that. “Yeah. She’s fine. He didn’t touch her, but he got her wallet. It’s been a pain in the ass for her to run all over town without a car trying to get her ATM card and driver’s license replaced. But it could have been a lot worse. He had a knife, for fuck’s sake.”

  “A knife?” Avery sounds as horrified as I feel.

  “But she’s okay?” I ask, even though he just said she was.

  His face softens a little. “Yeah. Honestly, she was a little shaken up, I could tell, but she wouldn’t admit it.”

  “Of course not.” I almost smile at that.

  “But she’s okay. She really needs to get a car or move. Or both.”